Stories - a photographic how not to:
Probably the first thing not to do, is not to give up doing something you love doing and then not take it up again until too many years later. Seems fairly logical really.
My interest in photography and particularly garden or plant photography was rekindled by a talk given by the professional garden photographer, Michael Warren of Photos Horticultural. As I was without a suitable camera at that time and also without a suitable income, I was wrestling with complexity of deciding what camera to buy, when who should appear at my parents front door while I was there, but Michael Warren.
He had noticed a particular clematis over the porch as he passed by the house and asked if he could photograph it. He was very kind enough to spend some time talking to me about photography.
Another "not to" is not to be too neurotic - oh dear I think mine is genetic. After buyng a camera, my mind began to complexify the purchase of the next most essential photographic item - a tripod. I was in a local supermarket, when who should I meet but Michael Warren and again he was kind enough to give me his advice and even kinder to hand me his business card and suggest that if I needed any other help I could ring him. As I have found out later not all other professional garden photographers. I may have rung him once, but that is all, however it is a very envaluing thing to do.
What I wouldn't have done then had I known was buy a standard lens - think twice about whether the type of photography you are interested in requires much use of one. The macro lens that sits on my camera once belonged to Eric Hosking, a natural history photographer. I spotted it in the window of Anglia Cameras and bought it before I had the camera to put it on. The OM4 was then bought from MXV. I have also bought equipment from Robert Whites.
Back to the first camera I bought, a beautiful but cumbersome heavyweight medium format with accompanying squeekly bellows and extroadinarily expensive at the time (now digitally devalued) macro lens. Don't do it. Keep things simple.
Also, on no account spend for ever not using the camera before you run a film through it. Otherwise, you might spend ours pruning off last years dead heads from a climbing rose up a step ladder, erecting a platform to put the tripod on, only to find when the film came back the the TTL was faulty. I won't mention that supplier, who said they tested all there cameras first. Never mind they'd be another chance next year. Well the rose seemed to suffer from flooding and next year it was dead! Perhaps it died laughing.
The other thing not to do is too invest in alot of equipment just as the technology is changing so rapidly. Partly bad luck as at the time digital cameras were not an equal to film cameras and it looked as though it would be a long while before they were. Although the equipment is important and the choice depends on what you intend the final images to be used for, you still need to spend more time taking pictures than worrying about what equipment you haven't got.
The final and most important advice is don't expect to make money on photography. You may and goodluck to you. But do find time to do things you enjoy whatever they are. Life is ever shortening.
